it was never for the wise to know
(maybe that would be written in sioux)
that we can ascend
not needing ladders
but stairs yes;
their component parts the lexicon of curiosity.

i would sit with sioux and make their marks;
with bedou too for what it is worth,
to know that we are as one drawn breath;
one-ache-one-bended-knee
in front of something bigger;
something that beats with no favourites.

there is time and there is more time yet.
it befalls us to take what is ours...

In your reply to my “America the Beautiful”, in your alarm you conjure up, your poison pills as proscribed in ObamaCare’s Death Panels coined by Sarah Palin and in Obama’s own words take the pills and die (all you old and infirmed).

My patriotic rant you so deplore, explains your mental condition that is absent in your reasoning and heretic brewed reply, you so apply state as my vilification.

In your claim to “empathize” and my lack of balance, you yourself are guilty of disrespect not to empathize America, with a capital “A” that proves to me you’re not American, but a terrorist and un-American. Maybe even a Muslim yourself?

Because you think you think? Only proves you are what have called “a horse’s arse” aka a typical deformed demon-crap, with a consequence on “crap”. Muslims are painfully inhospitable to all and show no love of their children, when they shoot a young girl in the head because she wants to go to school. You are a frelling “IDIOT”.

You dare to further claim, “just like the muslims i’ve met and broke bread with.” This alone is enough to convulse any Christian. The Last Supper was the last supper of the Son of God (not Allah’s) who broke bread that is now quoted and stated clearly daily, you and Muslim’s daily blaspheme.

You and your title as Senior Management at Pleasant View Nursing Home, is a sad commentary of the abyss of America’s liberal education system of which you portray.

I think this is many things, one among those many is that it's fantastic. It feels like the philosophy of living wisdom, what is learned through intentional awareness and the passing of heartbeats. I really appreciate how the different ideas bounce off of each other- like the need to operate or ascertain that we are one in the same but then ending with this statement that feels like saying- go get what's yours.

The way you start and the title both make me think of the way the "wise" have acted so harshly and missed many important points in the course of recorded history- especially as you refer to the Sioux and I think of the stacks of mistreatments lain upon them by the so-called civilized man. I just find the ideas here to be a like a breath inhaled from the clean skies of two hundred years ago. And I'm sitting around a fire at dusk inhaling the wisdom of men who practice living quietly and understand the twining of all life.

But then the end feels like an abrupt shove back into the present and I am reminded of the reality of it all. And I think that feeling in and of itself is enough.

It's like a contradiction, as life can often be. Quite a compelling piece. Much enjoyed

in front of something bigger;
something that beats with no favourites.
there is time and there is more time yet.
it befalls us to take what is ours...

I like that line: that beats with no favourites.

it is mine (in the general sense) to make or to blow.
then that last line falls into place kind of like if you were using self talk or positive affirmation in your internal dialogue.... ok, do it (asshole).

i am not goiing to write as much as daniel. but i am also very pleased that you have reposted this.

i very much like the way you introduce this poem,
it is so delightfully awkward that we take note...
but
emotionally,

each time i read the final part,
i find myself saying yes, yes, yes,
i would sit with them too.........

i would sit with sioux and make their marks;
with bedou too for what it is worth,
to know that we are as one drawn breath;
one-ache-one-bended-knee
in front of something bigger;
something that beats with no favourites.
there is time and there is more time yet.
it befalls us to take what is ours...

and for the record,
i have quite a lot of time for the bedou.
...and the sioux, and daniel...and you.

I have some thoughts on this especially as it relates to knowledge but I shall not offer them from work. Anyway, as is sometimes the case I find comfort in the sense of the words you have offered rather than being impressed by the unique, oddly / cool as fashion in which you present them. Thanks for reposting this.

________________________________________
I find I like this poem because of the particular way you have chosen to phrase and present everything.

it was never for the wise to know

in a way that is a bit of an awkward beginning (the phrasing) and a bit of a mindfuck. if the wise are wise then surely they ought to know, and from my position of intelligence that's the first thing i clang up against. but- you are right. it wasn't for the wise to know, you only get wise through experience, so you are saying it is for the young soul to find and find out. you are saying that the opportunity to obtain wisdom is meant for the knob and the all sorts of kind of young bloke. and i guess when i say i only mean that as it relates to wisdom. so i find this opening statement of yours to be pointedly well articulated.

(maybe that would be written in sioux)

when you say maybe and that would that's also i bit of a mindfuck because you could imagine someone saying somewhere this is written in sioux orthis is written in sioux or something like that to present a case for.... after the fact.

you don't,
you say maybe this would be
and that's cool, that's serving a couple of ideas, that the sioux are wise and the other thing is that it gives me the sense that the narrator is speaking from a point or period in front of that (now antiquated) time.
there's just the hint there but I like that it exists and that these two lines immediately draw me up and pull me into thought. that's a measure of the writer i guess, your controlling the pace fits perfectly with the thematic - and here's where i'll branch off and say that 99% of poetry is a turn off. or that lots of people write but that not many people go so far as to achieve poetry. because i know about dinosaurs and the nature of men in that they like to manipulate things to their advantage - i don't really believe in god. because a lot of people can't achieve things with tone and pacing and the introduction and development of ideas i don't view it as poetry. but this poem, the words and the feeling i get from it, it's something i buy into, so i guess that explains the comfort thing.

that we can ascend
not needing ladders
but stairs yes;
their component parts the lexicon of curiosity.

I guess what i like about this part is that it is a move away sequence where you enlarge upon the original idea. i like that it kind of baffles me in that i have to reach for meaning again, i mean you have two similar things in stairs and ladders, but, stairs sort of make you think of a way being paved and one of general access while ladders makes you think of turbulent
times and things being taken by force.
so, again, i like the contrast and the way you have to dig a bit to try and soak up the narrator's intent.
it's a way for everyone, and i guess that ease thing, and easy thing, like the paving of roads was a way to ease commerce and also a statement of Rome's potency. you, you have a goat track but.....

or the great wall of china etc.

thing thing as it relates to your poem is that you are saying these foundations have already been laid but what you are speaking about is not visible.

where i don't buy into good so much, because of the tone and reasoning and use of mechanics etc i do buy into this.

i would sit with sioux and make their marks;

sit with sioux / makes their marks.

it's so simple and deliberately so and i like the way that comes down from the action. sure you mentioned stairs and a ladder but then i have just related back why i think you did so, so technically and for tone, that is just lovely and to me, for me, incredibly meaningful to go from elevation and something dynamic and complex (see lexicon)
to a thing of respect, and admiration, of little actions, or simple marks etc.

sometimes i think about where phrases come from or sometimes you'll see that on tv or in a book or on wiki or whatever, but the duality of it, a young person tries to make their mark. a revered person is considered to have made their mark. people who couldn't write made their mark, but mainly the first couple of examples, to me you are saying that i give these people my stamp of approval, i admire them, i revere them, i would be honoured...

with bedou too for what it is worth,

sit with soiux, with bedou too. that is just gorgeous or charming or measured and unhurried and just cool as chips.
and the natural progression, the singling out which doesn't exclude but, rather, seems to say more people or worth than the worth of a particular people. it serves that thought that the was has been paved for everyone and was not paved by one person, so there's a building of momentum in the feeling the poem gives.

to know that we are as one drawn breath;
and the drawing of breath, particular after you have singled out individual cultures, it seems a singular thing or that it should be a singular thing, but this idea of a synthesis for something so personal i really dig that and draw on it.

one-ache-one-bended-knee

and i like this too, the ache whether through having seen so many winters or because of the challenge, it gets back to the stairs and it sort of freezes what is motion, to climb a knee must bend, this is an active process, it's mid sentence, work in progress.

in front of something bigger;
something that beats with no favourites.

and yup, in front of something bigger, that's a loaded idea, one step, one step, ten thousand steps might equal a mountain so that's how lovely the associations/transitions are in this poem, the mid process thing of a bent knee and the idea that from small things we can do great things and that in our endeavors to do the great things or the great
many things
we must do one thing at a time.

there is time and there is more time yet.

i really love how you phrased this penultimate line. it serves those ideas -and there is more time yet.
that almost says there is nothing new under the sun, it almost serves as a warning - as much as it offers encouragement, and it is unhurried, it could be from some old now soul or predate the sun. so yup, i dug that.

it befalls us to take what is ours...

and, i like that when i think about these cultures you have singled out, i could say they are minorities. i could certainly cite instances of injustice with the sioux/indians etc. they were/are native americans yet who owns the country now etc. so i like this tension in the statement or the seeming conflict in it because i don't think you are talking about reclamation. i know you are not. i don't think you are talking about fucking over people. i know you are not, therefore it's nice that you could use something that has been historically victimized as a source of unity toward driving this common sense / strength.

Yesterday when i left a comment for Santi, I felt quite calmed and appreciative of the way it enabled me to step away from / outside of myself. I feel the same way about this critique/time spent, but I would like to say that in this instance it was the actual reading of it which allowed that to happen first.

I guess i know there are asteroids out there and suns many times bigger than the suns which are so much bigger than our sun. I have my sense of who i am and what can't be because of what can't ever be, i have my heart and its hurts - i have the foreknowledge that i am going to die etc etc.

the other day i was driving home after having done my grocery shopping after having had a good one day with my children - i was driving home thinking a lot and processing - and feeling- as is my way and I really just felt like howling. That always makes me feel about twelve which is hysterical when you have a 6 and 4 year old and so I laugh. and follow that up with an 'oh God'. I feel all there -and uninhabited so you could say this poem is for me, a poem for the notwise.

I put it that way and that bluntly because there should be a reason when we write and what I want to say is that there is solace and real strength and therefore great worth in your words, these words you have written, and i draw from them. It's a hopeful poem. Thanks for the repost mate.